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Basic Structure of Hindi Poetry
Part 3a – GeetGatiroop software for Mukt-Kavita
Vani Murarka and Vinod Tewary
(Editors, Kaavyaalaya.org)
Email address: [email protected]
Preface
This is an addendum to Part 3 of the series of articles on the basic structure of Hindi poetry. That part dealt with the role and
importance of rhythm in Mukt-Kavita. Also, Part 2a illustrated the use of GeetGatiroop, a powerful software tool, for analyzing and
visualizing the rhythm of a Hindi poem. This tool, developed by Vani Murarka, is available at http://manaskriti.com/geet-gatiroop/.
Subsequent to the publication of Part 3, some features have been added to GeetGatiroop that should be especially useful for
analyzing rhythm in Mukt-Kavita. This addendum illustrates the use of the new version of GeetGatiroop by applying it to the same
examples of Mukt-Kavita that were discussed in Part 3. Such an analysis should help a reader in understanding the inherent rhythm
in Mukt-Kavita. This should be of particular interest to poets as well as scholars and enthusiasts of poetry. Finally, GeetGatiroop
should prove to be a valuable tool for modern musicians interested in setting Mukt-Kavita to tune.
The whole article series is in 4 parts
Part 1: Structural units of a poem.
Part 2: Maatraa (मात्रा) or Meter of a Poem for Chhanddobaddh (छन्दोबद्ध) Poetry - i.e. poems that follow a clear rhyme and
rhythm. These are perhaps the most important ingredients of the craft of poetry.
Part 2a: Software “GeetGatiroop” to help in Maatraa counting.
Part 3: Rhythm in Mukt-Kavita (free verse) based on Maatraa and other structures.
Part 3a: (This part) Updates to software GeetGatiroop to support Mukt-Kavita
Part 4: Correspondence with Urdu poetry (yet to be published)
1. Introduction
In this part (addendum) we will give an overview of how the software GeetGatiroop can be used to perform the analysis of rhythm in
Mukt-Kavita as explained in Part 3.
As we have emphasized repeatedly in this article series, rhythm, periodicity, or laya (लय) is a core characteristic of poetry that
distinguishes it from prose. With the advent of new poetry, mukt-kavita, or free verse, it has become essential to ensure that a
poem retains a certain basic rhythm, otherwise a poem will be just a piece of prose with breaks at arbitrary places of a sentence. The
software "GeetGatiroop" should specifically serve this purpose and fulfill this important need for characterizing the base rhythm in
free verse.
For the purposes of precision and clarity, we are introducing a new term in this article and in the Geet Gatiroop software. The term
is "मूल बहर". Mool-bahar is defined to be the measure of the basic periodicity and meter as per maatraa counting that is inherent in
a free verse poem. Mool-bahar is not an established term in Hindi Kaavya-shaastra. There seems to be no specific word in Hindi that
exactly specifies this characteristic of a poem possibly because in the classical craft of poetry most poems were metered verses
adhering to the measures of laya, maatraa and meter. Comparatively, free verse is a more recent development in Hindi literature.
In a mukt-kavita that has an inherent rhythm, we had seen that the maatra structure of the poem adheres to a basic periodicity (or
the mool-bahar as defined above) either completely or at least loosely. However, unlike conventional or chhandobaddh poems, the
periodicity may be apparent only when a certain number of lines of the poem are considered together. Thus, the GeetGatiroop
software has been updated so that you may see the maatraa count of the lines in combination. Additionally, the user can specify the
mool-bahar or basic periodicity in maatraa-count terms that the poem should follow. On specifying the mool-bahar, the software
shows the extent to which lines are digressing from the base count. The poet can then use this information to modify the poem if
required. This information is also useful for a musician in setting up the rhythm of the poem. The facility to adjust the maatraa
allocation of long vowels (deergh swar) and half-letters based on pronunciation as described in the earlier articles of this series can
be used for mukt-kavita too.
2. Activating and using this Free-verse feature in GeetGatiroop
Let us now see the specific steps to be carried out to use this free-verse feature of GeetGatiroop.
For demonstration we are using these three lines from Dharmveer Bharati’s poem Kanupriya in the screen shots below.
तुम्हारे माथे म� मोर पंख�
से बेबस �वदा माँगने लगीं म� नह�ं आयी
This portion of Kanupriya has been discussed in greater detail in the earlier part 3 and is also revisited in section 3 below.
When you enter your poem in the GeetGatiroop box and press the “Visualize” button, some options show up below the visualization
generated. To activate the Free-verse feature, click on the “Free-verse” checkbox (or मुक्त-क�वता checkbox in the Hindi interface)
Clicking this checkbox will do two things:
1.
The software will show short thick black lines beside the maatraa count of every line of the poem.
2.
The software will show a “Base Count” (or मल
ू बहर for Hindi interface) box.
Clicking on the short dash beside the maatraa count of a line connects the line to the next one and we can see the composite
maatraa count for the combined lines. For example, clicking the black line beside 18 and clicking the black line beside 17 gave this
result, 18+17+9: 44.
As discussed in Part 3, this portion of Dharmveer Bharti’s Kanupriya has a base meter of 15 maatraas. Giving 15 in the Base Count /
मूल बहर tells us if the composite lines are in accordance with the basic periodicity of the poem or not. If there is a digression, the
software gives the exact digression, whether the count is extra or lesser. Some digression is allowed in mukt-kavita as long as the
overall sense of rhythm remains.
In the example below, the lines are 1 short of 45 which would be a perfect multiple of 15. When we enter 15 in the Base Count / मूल
बहर box the software shows this digression (-1), meaning that these lines are 1 maatraa short of the base meter.
If the lines had been totally in accordance with the base-count / mool-bahar, the software would show the total of the composite
lines in the normal black color. A digression is shown in red.
To separate lines marked as composite, click on the vertical black line.
This is the basic use of the GeetGatiroop software for mukt-kavita. The facility to adjust the maatraa allocation of long vowels
(deerghswar) and half-letters as per pronunciation can be used for mukt-kavita too.
As per this overview, let us see how the poems discussed in Part 3 will look in GeetGatiroop.
3. Examples of Part 3, Re-seen via GeetGatiroop
Lines from Gulzar’s Meraa Kuchh Saamaan
मेरा कुछ सा(आ)मान
तम्
ु हारे पास पड़ा है
वह लौटा दो
एक अकेल� छतर� म� जब
आधे आधे भीग रहे थे
आधे सख
ू े आधे गीले
सख
ू ा तो म� ले आयी थी
गीला मन शायद
�बस्तर के पास पड़ा है
वह �भजवा दो
मेरा वह सामान लौटा दो
मेरा वह सामान लौटा दो
Vinod Tewary’s poem Jeevan Deep
मेरा एक द�प जलता है ।
अं�धयार� म� प्रखर प्रज्ज्व�लत,
तूफान� म� अचल, अ�वच�लत,
यह द�पक अ�विजत, अपरािजत।
मेरे मन का ज्यो�तपुंज
जो जग को ज्यो�तमर्य करता है ।
मेरा एक द�प जलता है ।
सय
ू र् �करण जल क� बन्
ू द� से
छनकर इन्द्रधनुष बन जाती,
वह� �करण धरती पर �कतने
रं ग �बरं गे फूल �खलाती।
ये �कतनी �व�भन्न घटनाय�,
पर दोन� म� �न�हत
प्रकृ�त का �नयम एक है ,
जो अटूट है ।
इसपर अ�डग आस्था मुझको
जो �व�ान मुझे जीवन म�
पगपग पर प्रे�रत करता है ।
मेरा एक द�प जलता है ।
यह �वशाल ब्रह्मांड
यहाँ म� लघु हूँ
ले�कन ह�न नह�ं हूँ।
म� पदाथर् हूँ
ऊजार् का भौ�तक� करण हूँ।
नश्वर हूँ,
पर �ीण नह�ं हूँ।
म� हूँ अपना अहम
शिक्त का अ�मट स्रोत, जो
न्यूटन के �सद्धान्त सर�खा
परम सत्य है ,
सुन्दर है , �शव है शाश्वत है ।
मेरा यह �वश्वास �नरन्तर
मेरे मानस म� पलता है ।
मेरा एक द�प जलता है ।
Lines from Dharmveer Bharti’s Kanupriya
भय, संशय, गोपन, उदासी
ये सभी ढ�ठ, चंचल, सरचढ़� सहे �लय� क� तरह
मझ
ु े घेर लेती ह�,
और
म� �कतना चाह कर भी तुम्हारे पास ठ�क उसी समय
नह�ं पहुँच पाती जब आम्र मंज�रय� के नीचे
अपनी बाँसुर� म� मेरा नाम भर कर तुम बुलाते हो!
उस�दन
तुम उस बौर लदे आम क�
झुक� डा�लय� से �टके �कतनी दे र
मुझे वंशी से टे रते रहे
ढलते सूरज क� उदास काँपती �करण�
तम्
ु हारे माथे मे मोर पंख�
से बेबस �वदा माँगने लगीं म� नह�ं आयी
We invite you to copy-paste your favorite mukt-kavita into GeetGatiroop and see it from a new perspective of rhythm. Explore
whether you can identify how the lines are to be considered together so that a picture of basic periodicity emerges.
In Part 4, we will talk about the structure of Urdu poetry.
rd
3 April 2015